


My Favorite

by collectingnames



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Familiars, Fluff, M/M, Scars, general warning for allusions to Caleb's backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23590225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collectingnames/pseuds/collectingnames
Summary: Sleepy wizard antics-----Essek is lightly jostled from his trance by a soft, accented voice and calloused fingertips skimming his face.  He blinks and when the haziness clears Caleb is there, presumably having finally made his way to bed, lying down next to him with his head propped up on one hand.  Caleb's other hand rests on his cheek.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 20
Kudos: 378





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing shadowgast I just kept seeing so much painfully tender art on my dash that I had to do something about it. This can be loosely described as having a plot. I swear I have fjorclay stuff in the works. Inspired by art from fiovske on tumblr  
> https://fiovske.tumblr.com/post/614735621929435136/i-sent-my-friend-who-doesnt-watch-cr-but-is-very

Essek is lightly jostled from his trance by a soft, accented voice and calloused fingertips skimming his face. He blinks and when the haziness clears Caleb is there, presumably having finally made his way to bed, lying down next to him with his head propped up on one hand. Caleb's other hand rests on his cheek. 

"Fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four" Caleb taps his cheek again.

He blinks again and shakes off the rest of the trance, "Can I help you?"

"Nein, I'm good," he notices him start to begin his count again.

"What are you doing?"

"Counting your freckles," Caleb says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Mhm," he lets his eyes fall closed again, "get some rest, Light."

"Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven...and this...is my favorite right here," Caleb taps a freckle just below his cheekbone.

"Is this? Are you doing that sheep-counting thing with my face?"

"Just a little," he mumbles sleepily.

"Get some rest you silly man," he turns over onto his side with his back to him.

Caleb just presses closer and throws an arm around his waist, face pressed into the back of his neck, "I _was_ falling asleep."

"Mhm," he traces a finger along the arm curled around him.

Caleb grumbles a little and buries his face deeper into the close-cropped part of his undercut. He lets his eyes drift shut but not really about to fall back into his trance. Just absentmindedly tracing the lines that span Caleb's arms. He peers through lidded eyes and traces along his arm more purposefully. It's easy to avoid the ones from before the nein, they're patterned and faded but just visible enough that he can decipher the individual components. Hints of transmutation and evocation and painfully rudimentary dunamancy. Dunamancy as understood by someone who heard about it from someone who had learned at most one cantrip. Although he knows with certainty that that's not the truth, not entirely. He goes over the timeline in his head often, trying to figure out if maybe he contributed to that knowledge etched into Caleb's skin. He's pretty sure that anything he did happened after he was out of their clutches. Pretty sure. But it's an eerily still, pitch-black lake, the sheer depth of it unknowable and it takes sheer force of will to stay on the shore.

He takes his hand and skims a scar that glances across the back of his hand.

"One," he starts his count.

"I thought you wanted me to sleep," he mumbles into the back of his head.

"You broke my trance."

He mumbles something he can't quite make out.

"Two, three, four," he pauses on one that curls into a semicircle around his forearm, "hmm, what's this one?"

He doesn't pick his head up to see which one he's talking about, "A fight, probably."

"What were you fighting?"

"Dunno."

He finds a different one on the heel of his palm, "This one?"

"Frumpkin."

"Your familiar did that?"

"Nein, our cat did that," his head slumps forward a little more as he drifts further and further away.

"Frumpkin _is_ a cat."

He laces their fingers together, stopping his hand, "Frumpkin is a fae that shows up in the form I summon him in. That was Frumpkin, the actual cat."

He slots the information together, "Interesting."

"If you'd like details, I was five and pulled his tail. He did not take kindly to that."

The image of a tiny Caleb, not yet understanding how to handle pets, being too rough with a very put-out tabby conjures itself in his mind's eye. A chubby-cheeked, graceless toddler running to his mother with watery eyes because he's so young and not sure if this hurts. He pries their hands apart and pulls the arm around his waist a little tighter around him as he curls up into his grip more and chuckles.

"He was a stray I drug home. I found him hunting field mice in our garden."

Essek couldn't quite stifle his chuckle.

"What's so funny?"

"You must have been a little nightmare," he teases.

"Hey!"

"An obnoxiously precocious little thing," he continues.

"'Precocious' says the youngest Shadowhand in the history of the Dynasty," he squeezes a little tighter, just enough to wring a soft 'oof' out of him.

"I know how to spot one of my own," he insists.

"Whatever you say."

He goes back to his count, "Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen."

" _Mpf_ "

He pulls his hand away, "Sorry!"

"It's 'kay, fresher, more sensitive."

"Fourteen," he mumbles, the trance starting to set in, "fifteen, sixteen."

"Well, do you have a favorite?" He's so sleepy that he's barely intelligible.

"Are you? Are you waiting for me to pick a favorite?"

He nods 'yes' against the back of his neck.

He puts their hands back together, "I don't have a favorite time you were hurt, Caleb Widogast."

He's not sure if he heard him, both of them teetering on the brink of unconsciousness.

Essek rouses from his trance a few hours later, thoroughly trapped by the arms wrapped around him. He could probably wiggle free if he wanted. It's not like Caleb's a light sleeper, the man could sleep through just about anything, the perpetual exhaustion lingering in his eyes makes itself known whenever it comes time to try and drag him out of bed in the morning. But it's not like he has anywhere to be today and he's nestled in this wonderful expanse of blankets and body heat. It almost works, but it's basically just relaxing with his eyes closed. Sleep seems nice from the way he hears others talk about it, but it seems like his elven body isn't quite capable of it. And so the boredom settles in and he finally wriggles his way out of Caleb's grasp and meanders over to the laboratory first. The remnants of Caleb's experimentation from yesterday are scattered across his favored workbench, the one at the tall window. He can only half-read his personal notes, he writes most of his personal effects in Zemnian, there are some words he recognizes but he doesn't have a grip on the grammar yet. One of the pieces of the Vault of Amber is doubling up as a paperweight. Out of curiosity, he holds it up to the light, sometimes he can make out the silhouette of the items contained therein.

"Mmm, good morning. What are you uh, what are you doing?" Caleb's voice suddenly behind him makes him fumble the amber, just barely keeping from dropping it.

He clears his throat, smoothing his hair back to try and mollify his bedhead, "Just checking to see what important thing made you take forever to come to bed last night."

"Nothing terribly important, I just hit my stride and didn't want to give it up," he deftly plucks the amber out of his hands and sets it back down to its place on the table.

"I would be concerned if you of all people had lost track of time."

"I can tell _what_ time it is, not _how much_ has passed," he responds while casually checking his notes, scowling at the sloppy, sleepy handwriting. 

"You can tell one from the other."

"Mm, you would be surprised, Schatz."

Essek picks the amber back up again and conjures some Dancing Lights underneath it to illuminate it, tinting the room an inviting orange, "You still need to teach me this one."

"And you are free to learn it whenever you wish, you don't need my help."

"And perhaps I want the insight of the inventor himself, should I need it," he hops up to sit on the table.

Caleb chuckles and with a snap of his fingers, Frumpkin appears on the floor and leaps to sit on the table, curling up next to him.

He glares down at Frumpkin, back up to Caleb, "If you don't want me to sit on your workbench you can just say so."

He steps forward into his space when he tries to jump back down, "I am sorry, I did not mean it that way."

"Hmm, okay, all is forgiven," he takes advantage of the increased closeness to pull him down into a brief kiss. "I am curious to know what you’re working on though.”

“Nothing terribly exciting, just testing the limits of the Vault of Amber,” he pulls another of the five pieces out from a drawer.

He nods, paying careful attention as Caleb pulls a sheet from the mess of notes and starts pointing out the elements of the spell's sigil to him.

“Range, if I can put something in one piece and remove it through another. I’m not certain if I can pull off such a thing but I am eager to better define the limits of the spell. And-. What? Why are you staring?” He looks back up at him when he realizes that Essek is staring at him and not the notes.

Essek doesn’t drop his affectionate smile, “You’re cute when you get excited.”

Caleb _blushes_. And gods this ridiculous, wonderful man, still going bright red at the most basic of compliments. Even after years together. A self-satisfied smile stretches across his face as he draws Caleb in even closer, where he can toy with his hair and it’s a small thing but there’s a quiet if superficial thought that he’s glad he hasn’t gone back to the relatively short hair he had when they met, it looks so much better long like this. The look on his face makes it seem like he’s trying to decide between blushing harder and letting it recede. 

Caleb clears his throat, “Um, yes, thank you.”

“Hmm, it’s surprisingly easy to say things when they’re true.”

He cracks a smile even if he goes even more red somehow, “Of course.”

He hums contentedly and rests his head on Caleb’s chest, “My handsome wizard.”

"You are also a wizard."

"Yes, but you're _my_ wizard...and a handsome one a that."

Caleb’s shoulders suddenly ease, enough to be visible enough that it makes him pull back to inspect him. His gaze is blank and the moment he’s noticed this, Frumpkin jumps down off the table and runs out the laboratory door. He dashes after the cat. Just barely manages to catch him, though not without a stumble that will definitely leave a bruise on his elbow later. Frumpkin quickly surrenders to his dad’s grip.

He scratches Frumpkin behind the ears and puts on a teasingly scolding tone that comes out sounding vaguely like Jester, “Ca-leb, you silly man.

The blind-and-deaf in his own body Caleb attempts to casually turn around as if his senses aren’t inside his familiar, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He returns to his very important task of giving Caleb-Frumpkin ear scritches, “Ah, stubborn too, I see.”

Caleb stands up a little taller, not slouching so badly anymore, shakes his head once as if to get settled back in his own head, “Guilty as charged.”

It takes one more lazy kiss before they can finally drag themselves out of the laboratory and attempt to do anything they could generously call ‘productive.’


	2. Addendum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why Caleb wanted to test the range

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short thing, I just couldn't fit this idea into the original fic. I'm just, havin a good time with this spell

Caleb hands him one of the amber pieces, "Care to help me with an experiment?"

Essek takes his nose out of his book, a meditation on the theory behind graviturgy, inspects the stone, "Are you still working out the details on the range?"

He nods yes.

The book isn't terribly engaging, the author's writing is obtuse and overly scholarly, only making sense to those already deep in the subject. He sets it back down on the table and gets out of his chair, "What would you like me to do?"

"I will be in the lab and if you could stand with that in the foyer. I emptied the pieces earlier to keep from any confusion with the results. I'll put something small in my piece and try to command your piece to expel it," he goes over his plan and leaves a pause for him to ask any questions.

"What should I be looking for?"

"If it works, you'll know," he non-explains.

Something is going on here, he's sure of it, but for the life of him he can't discern anything from Caleb's poker-face, "Alright then."

Essek floats down the stairs towards the foyer. It feels like perhaps he should be doing something more than just, standing here with a stone. He's happy to help of course but it still feels somewhat pointless. This can easily be done without him. As far as he can tell, he's just here to shout back to Caleb to let him know if it worked. A minute passes, then two, then a third. He drops his levitation spell and starts pacing back and forth across the foyer, passing the amber between his fingers. What's taking so long? The amber glows and starts to warm in his palm. He stops in his tracks and stares intently down at the stone in his palm, taking mental note of every change. It shakes, trembles, glows steadily brighter and then. A sharp crackling noise rings out, like a particularly nasty static shock and a small, finely carved dark wooden box, not much bigger than the amber itself, appears in his hand. That dark purple wood common in Rosohna.

Essek pulls the coil of copper wire out from within his robes and speaks into it, "Caleb, am I supposed to open the box? You can reply to this message."

Crackling static precedes Caleb's voice, voice carefully contained, "Yes, go ahead, open it."

An idea crosses his mind but extinguishes itself as quickly as a flashbang. He thumbs open the hinged lid, some internal mechanism clicking open. A white-gold ring, two fine twisting coils of delicate metal joining in the middle to hold a dazzlingly polished ametrine rests inside.

His thoughts come to a screeching halt. He teleports into the lab, only an inch at most away from Caleb where he's holding his piece of amber close to his chest. The question is there in the way he holds his brow, that eager hopefulness in the tilt of his head. He pulls him in by his scarf and crashes their lips together in a fervent, graceless kiss. At some point, the box gets dumped onto the table behind Caleb, Essek getting frustrated at not having both of his hands free to hold him.

He pulls away finally and is met with Caleb's smile, his wonderful smile so big that it stretches ear to ear, blush high in his cheeks and stormy blue-grey eyes shiny with barely-contained joyful tears.

"Yes, of course, of course I'll marry you," Essek says, still a little breathless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at these fuckin nerds, proposing to each other via experimental spells.


	3. Revision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As my friend put it "WHAT'S YOUR BRAIN NAME"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, just wanted to come in and say that there aren't really any grand plans for this fic, there's a basic throughline of domesticity/this engagement/marriage scenario but it's more just a place for me to put ideas I have for conversations I want Essek to have with Caleb. So stick around for light, fluffy vignettes I suppose.
> 
> Beau said on the boat that Caleb putting 'Widogast' in the name of all his original spells was a branding thing and his immediate reaction was to go no that's pretty shit branding since it isn't even my real name and apparently I'm still thinking about that exchange
> 
> The next chapter of hello there should be happening this weekend and I have a longer (for me anyway) fjorclay thing in the works.

The question is pressing on him, has been. Not that he knows how to actually bring it up. How is he supposed to just casually bring it up in conversation? And he’s learned the better methods to bring up the past without bringing down the mood too much. Still, it could just be that his hesitation comes from not wanting to know the answer, not as much as he thinks. So he sits there arguing with himself and tracing little nonsense patterns on the arm of the sofa, watching Caleb where he sits across the room. It would be just another nice, simple evening for them, himself skimming a book he’s read so many times he’s practically committed it to memory at this point and Caleb giving Frumpkin his long-demanded pets after a day spent in the lab, if he could shake the lingering thought.

“Caleb?” He finally manages to speak up.

He lifts his head up from where his face had been buried in the soft fur of Frumpkin’s stomach, clearly a little sleepy, “Hm?”

“I’m sorry if this is out of line but I’ve been wondering,” he trails off to give Caleb an opportunity to end the conversation right now if he wants to.

Frumpkin makes an indignant  _ mrp _ upon realizing that belly rubs have come to an end.

“What is it?”

“Well,” he fidgets with the ring on his finger, “I only bring it up because it might become relevant soon but I was wondering, why have you not gone back to your old name?”

He starts, stops, starts again, “Do you want me to?”

“No, I just, Veth went back to her old name after the successful transmogrification and, you have … dealt with, the Cerberus Assembly. Anyone who would have wanted rid of you has been dealt with in one way or another.”

He sits back in his chair, absentmindedly scratching Frumpkin’s ears, “I…”

“We do not have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“No, no, it is a fair question, I just. I have not given it much active thought,” he curls a lock of hair around his finger as he considers it.

“We can come back to this later if you’d like,” he puts one of his hands over his but he doesn’t react.

“What is left for Bren anyway?”

“I’m sorry?” He can’t help the immediate double-take reaction/

Perhaps he has thought about it more than he let on, to begin with, “Veth had a family, a son and husband and a life, perhaps not a perfect life but she had a loving family that she wanted to return to. Trent-.”

His ears flick up a little when he invokes that man with no hesitation.

“-the whole point of his training was to make us reliant on him. There is nothing left for Bren.”

“There could be.”

Caleb crosses the room to join him on the couch, “I am afraid I don’t understand. Why are you so concerned about what name I use?”

“Not for my own sake, Light,” he slouches to lean up against Caleb’s shoulder, “It is just that, I have heard you mention in passing before that ‘Caleb’ isn’t your real name and we’re going to be married soon and I don’t want to ‘lock you into’ a name so to speak, that you don’t genuinely don’t think of as yours.”

Caleb gives him a brief, concerned stare, “I, I suppose I have.”

“I honestly do not care which name you go by. I just want to make sure that whichever one it is, it is the one you actually think of as you.”

He slips a hand into Essek’s, “A long time ago I would have told you that I did not go back to ‘Bren’ because I felt that perhaps I did not deserve to be who I once was. That what happened had ruined me. And I suppose it is just easiest to say that it is my ‘real name’ because it is the name I was given, but I cannot go back to being Bren. Not because I was ‘ruined’ but because there was nothing to go back to. I think perhaps, Bren deserves to rest, in the past where he belongs.” He leans in and there’s a teasing to his voice but he can see the gears continuing to turn behind his eyes, torn, however little, on how he truly feels about this, “Besides,  _ Caleb Widogast  _ is the one with a very handsome wizard sat half in his lap.”

He rolls his eyes to try and match the teasing tone Caleb puts forth, even if his conclusion only half-answers the question. This will come up again. They will need to talk about it more. For now though, “I am  _ not  _ in your lap at all, thank you very much.”

Caleb isn’t particularly strong nor Essek particularly heavy. “Oh, I think we can remedy that.”

“Ah!” He twists his head wildly, giggling, and trying to avoid the little pecks on the cheeks Caleb tries to give him, “You are impossible!”

“I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me writing Caleb name weirdness: this wizard is trans and there's nothing you can do about it


	4. Dedication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who do you think you should swear on?”  
> “You,” his gaze is unwavering.  
> “Then swear on me, Light,” it still feels wrong, something is still very clearly at the least, not right.  
> “I swear on you, Essek Thelyss, that I will be back, here, in this room, in this bed, by day’s end.”  
> He cradles his jaw in his other hand, “It’s okay, I believe you. Stay safe, Light.”  
> “Of course, Schatz.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can have a Caleb Angst chapter...as a treat. Sometimes you use Caleb to vent and I think that's incredibly valid of me.

A hand brushing his hair back out of his face pulls him from his trance. He stirs, puts a hand over the one on his face, stopping it from pulling away. The haziness of his trance fades from his vision. As expected, it’s Caleb, surprised, and apologetic for having broken his trance. Though his hair is pulled back out of his face, in an old coat cut in Empire style. 

He sits up in bed, taking a tighter hold of his hand, “Caleb, Light, is something wrong?”

“No, I just need to run an errand. I will be back before the day’s end,” he brings him in a little closer to press a quick kiss to the top of his head.

“Where are you going?” He asks, not...accusatory, but definitely looking for an answer.

Caleb kisses him again, “Get your rest, _Schatz_. I did not mean to wake you.”

“That does not answer my question,” he moves to get up

But Caleb just stands a little closer, so he doesn’t have the room to stand, “I'll be back, I promise. On whoever you want me to swear on, everything is fine.”

“Who do you think you should swear on?”

“You,” his gaze is unwavering.

“Then swear on me, Light,” it still feels _wrong_ , something is still very clearly at the least, not right.

“I swear on you, Essek Thelyss, that I will be back, here, in this room, in this bed, by day’s end.”

He cradles his jaw in his other hand, “It’s okay, I believe you. Stay safe, Light.”

“Of course, _Schatz_.”

The verbal components of _Teleport_ are intimately familiar to him. Though there is a flickering thought that it sounds weird hearing them come from Caleb. He sits there, alone on the edge of the bed, not sure if trying to trance again will be worth it. Probably not, he’s too alert now for it to come easily. So he does what he can. Washes his face, dresses, finds something he can nibble on for breakfast while he studies in the laboratory. He certainly does _attempt_ to do that anyway.

He’s consulting Caleb’s constantly addendum-riddled notes for _Vault of Amber_. Trying to properly absorb it while he transcribes the glyphs and some of the more important notes on the theory into his spellbook. Frumpkin is notably absent, there have been no cat-related inkwell incidents so clearly he is either regular not here or Caleb dismissed him between last night and this morning. His thoughts still drift. When he means to be dedicating all of his mind to transcribing but it flits past his face like an annoying insect. Though to his credit, he does manage to make it midway into the afternoon before he can’t quash his thoughts anymore. 

He _should_ be correctly drawing out the glyph that connects the individual pieces of amber together. _He never wakes up before me._ He _should_ be remembering to use blotting paper as he goes. _Did he not want me to see him leave?_ He _should_ actually look at the notes he’s referencing if he plans to make any use of them. _Where is he? If he’s in the Empire is he safe? Of course, he’s safe. He would not do something so purposefully reckless._ He **should** be paying attention but any productive transcription work is a lost cause by now.

There are plenty of places in the Empire he could possibly be though only a handful are likely. Though given current events, it’s likely wherever he is has some sentimental value. Not a place good or bad in his memory, just important. So many places could be important though. There’s really no sentimental reason to go to Zadash unless he just really feels the need to catch up with either Mr. Pumat Sol or The Gentleman. Which, no. That doesn’t make sense. But it doesn’t have to be a person, it could be a place. He could, could be in Rexxentrum. There-. 

He discards the work at his desk and goes to grab the hooded cloak that best shields his face from the sun out of the wardrobe and casts _Teleportation_ quickly enough to stumble over his words ever so slightly. Everything is fine. No one is in danger. They are both safe. The danger is long since passed, even if it does nothing to assuage his worry gnawing at his insides.

When his feet become reacquainted with the ground there are mountains to his east, forest, and field along the road ahead of him. Fair enough, he’s not familiar enough with the place to have had a high chance of landing exactly where he needed to. He knows this place only by Caleb’s descriptions. It was too small and beyond his concern to know more than its name when he was in league with the Cerberus Assembly. His knowledge of the Empire’s geography is not as sharp as it once was but he knows the correct direction he needs to head in. Even with the overcast sky above him, he pulls the hood of his cloak to further shield himself from the morose sunlight that falls past the clouds.

It takes a little more than an hour but he reaches Blumenthal without any issue. The temple to Pelor that watches over the fields is a simple, stone thing with a multitude of large windows to let in as much light as possible. But for the most part, the square is quiet, only a handful of the village’s denizens out on errands. He spots a notice board and goes up to read it, pretending to be engrossed by its contents while he listens in on the light chatter. A brief casting of _Comprehend Languages_ makes the task much easier, even if the way the spell translates Zemnian is unhelpfully literal at times.

“ _Excuse me, can you point me in the direction of the Ermendrud farm? I fear the old landmarks are no longer there,_ ” He recognizes Caleb’s voice. 

“ _Oh, uh, it’s about, if you take that path for about a half a mile. The farm is gone but they put up a marker there, just off the path,_ ” an older dwarf gives him the directions he’s looking for.

“ _Thank you,_ ” Caleb starts to leave.

“ _You look familiar,_ ” the dwarf says to his back.

“ _We haven’t met_ ,” Caleb mumbles to the ground as he walks off.

He waits for Caleb’s footsteps to leave earshot before turning to follow. Caleb doesn’t seem to notice him, never looks back over his shoulders. His focus is dedicated solely on the path ahead of him. He holds a paper-wrapped parcel under one arm. This feels wrong. He should have left him to his business. This was a bad idea, to put it lightly. There’s no cover on the road to shield him if Caleb should decide to turn around. 

Caleb leaves the road, towards an overgrown field. In the distance, there are some fractured, burned pieces, of what might have at one point been the husk of a house. Standing just past the tall grass is a rough-hewn stone, no names carved into it. From the road, it would probably be mistaken for a mile marker. They both know that is not the case. Caleb pulls out the paper parcel from under his arm and now he can properly see that it’s a small bouquet of wildflowers, something simple and colorful, it looks like they could have been picked from this same field. It is eerily still and silent and Caleb rests them on top of the stone. By now the winter sun is starting to set, painting the fields amber. The only sounds are of distant livestock and the wind rustling through the grass. 

Caleb sighs, head bowed as he summons the nerve to speak, “Hello, mother and father. I am…home. I have not, not come back and I'm-I must-I am sorry.

He takes a deep breath, his voice sounds thick, like he has to speak around the building ache, “I wanted to tell you. I came here to tell you that.” His words freeze and he has to blurt it out into the setting sun, “I am getting married.”

It suddenly dawns on him that Caleb isn’t speaking in Zemnian.

“Ah, his name is Essek, Essek Thelyss. You would-. Well, I'm uh, not sure if you would like him but I think you could grow to like him if you met. He is from Xhorhas, I-I live in Rohsona now. Who would have ever thought that I would live in the heart of Xhorhas? We could barely believe that I was going to Rexxentrum and now, now I’m here You, uh, you probably want to know about him. He is smart, so smart. I cannot begin to describe the scale of his knowledge. It's a joy to work with him. I look at him and I am, I am in awe.”

There’s a long pause before he can speak again.

“I love him. I love him so much and I will forever be grateful that he said yes. Though I do not understand _why,_ I do not want to question his judgment. He is no fool. I trust his judgment even if I cannot wrap my head around it. That is on me. He is so…good, I see so much goodness in him and I know he must see some of that in myself but I don’t know **_how_ ** . I **know** now that I am not the monster that I used to think of myself as but just because I **know** does not mean I **believe**. But gods the way he looks at me sometimes maybe for just a second I can.”

A meow comes from his feet. Frumpkin is sitting there looking up at him like he’s waiting for him to respond. He almost tries to hush the little fey and try to shoo him away.

But Caleb lifts his head, “He is here. Would you like to meet him?”

Frumpkin follows at his heels as he approaches, “Caleb, Light, I’m sorry.”

Caleb takes his hand immediately, holding tight, “It’s okay, I thought you might follow me. I had already made up my mind to say it whether or not you were listening.” 

“I shouldn’t have, I’m sorry,” he gently tucks the hair framing Caleb’s face back behind his ears.

“It’s okay, _Schatz_ , I promise,” Caleb pulls him in, presses a soft kiss to his forehead.

He glances down at the blank stone, whispers, “It is a pleasure to meet you, Leofric, Una. Your son is quite a catch, you did a good job with him.

Caleb tucks his face away into the crook of his neck, “Trying to make a good impression, are we?”

“Of course,” he brushes a little dirt and dust from the stone, “Do you want to stay here a little while longer?”

He shakes his head no.

“Should I take us home or would you like to do it?”

Caleb backs off and takes his other hand so they are both clasped in his, “I can do it.”

Caleb recites the verbal components of _Teleport_ , the ground beneath their feet lighting up for a moment before it’s gone. The field is replaced by cool wood. They’re back. In their bedroom. Caleb shrugs off his coat and hangs it up on one of the hooks on the inside of the wardrobe. He sits down on the edge of the bed and toes off his boots, carelessly kicking them off to the side, eyes fixed down firmly on either his hands or the floor.

Essek kneels down in front of him, one hand taking his, the other resting at the nape of his neck, bringing him in closer, “Light, I love you. You know that right?”

Caleb nods, “ _Ja_.”

“You believe me when I say that, right?”

“More than anything,” he whispers, voice dampened by the audible tightness in his voice from where he’s struggling to quash the need to bare his emotions.

“You may not believe everything I think about you, right now. But please, you can take comfort in the fact that I love you. If that is what helps. I do not think any less of you for your doubts. _It’s okay, Light, it’s okay, I promise_ ,” Essek punctuates himself with a fleeting kiss to Caleb’s lips.

“ _Danke_ ,” Caleb speaks against his lips as he pulls away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No strict schedule but I'm officially wrapping this fic up at 6 chapters.


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